Friday, October 29, 2010

All the news that fits?

Norm Spector is moaning today about the "mainstream media" burying (but not, for the most part, excising) a piece of information about Omar Khadr's "trial," namely, that his statements before the Gitmo kangaroos are not sworn testimony and hence not subject to cross-examination.

Why this should matter one way or the other is beyond my comprehension. We've already had his coerced confession, and a plea deal is sealed no matter what the outcome of the sentencing phase (unless the "jury" opts to give him a better one, which is about as likely as Stephen Harper appearing as a last-minute character witness).

This seems more like another swipe at Khadr than serious media criticism. In any case, the ol' Spectorvision was apparently not working last Tuesday.

H/t to Eugene Forsey Liberal, via Alison, for this splendid catch. A passage went missing from Don Martin's coverage of Omar Khadr in the National Post's print edition:While Khadr insisted he was acting unprovoked to clear his guilty conscience, it seems beyond a reasonable doubt that a kid who had withstood years of torture and the best interrogation techniques imaginable without confessing would suddenly blurt out the truth as his trial was about to begin. Let’s not forget, this is the same Omar Khadr who was coerced into fabricating the nonsense that he’d actually seen Ottawa resident Maher Arar at a Pakistan training camp.

Good for Martin: he tried. And at least the Post ran this column. The Khadr farce, it appears, was too much even for the grumpy old right-winger George Jonas to stomach.